PEARLS OF WISDOM

Tao Congress 2010

DARIA FAIN

Daria Fain

Daria Faïn is an acclaimed New York choreographer originally from Antibes, France. Her choreography fuses her European cultural background with two decades of practice in Asian bodywork philosophies and American dance training.

She has been a Chi Kung practitioner since 1990 and became a Universal Tao Instructor in 2001; her teachers include Karfung Wu and Dr Jian. The practice of Chi Kung has a major influence in her movement technique that she applies to dance and therapeutic purposes.

Faïn has also extensively researched the reciprocal influence that architecture and human behavior have on one another, and has given several lectures on Swiss-born modern architect and urbanist Le Corbusier. Over the years Faïn’s choreographic research has led her to work with psychotics, patients with other mental disorders, and blind-deaf individuals, leading to a complex understanding of the body as a resource of knowledge.

In New York, Faïn's work has been presented at The Kitchen, Danspace Project, PS-122, and the 92nd Street Y, among many other venues. Over the course of her career, she has presented 15 evening-length performances and numerous other short works and installations.

She founded, designed, and built the multidisciplinary arts center and performance space Atelier Trigon with architect/poet Robert Kocik in Paris in 1990, and served as its Co-Artistic Director from 1990-1994. In 2000, Faïn founded the dance company Human Behavior Explorers, and in 2008, with Kocik, she launched the 501(c)3 non-profit organization Universal Coverage Initiative. Inc.

In 1979, Faïn received the Cultural Ministry Award from the Concours Internationale de Choregraphie de Bagnolet (France). In 1986 she received a special fellowship from the French Ministry of Urbanism’s Architecture Research Section. She has been awarded numerous grants from the French Ministry of Culture (1984-1986-1994). She has also received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (1994).

Fain’s work has been commissioned by the Foundation Cartier (Paris - 1996), the Ecole de Beaux Arts (Paris - 1996), and Marseille Objectif Danse (Marseille, France 2001 - 2004). In 2008 her Projects: THE EXTENT TO WHICH, THE PERINEUM: An Anechoic Darkroom, and the PHONEME CHOIR received funding from: Hip Up Foundation, American Music Center: Live Music for Dance, New York State Cultural Affairs, James E Robison Foundation and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Faïn has been a faculty member at Movement Research since 2005, and she has taught master classes and workshops at institutions across the United States, including the Trisha Brown Studio, New York University, Tulane University, Adelphi University, Rutgers University, Cooper Union, Sarah Lawrence College and international Festivals in Europe. Her writing has frequently been published in the Movement Research Performance Journal.

The Perineum: An Anechoic Darkroom On Wall Street

After experiencing the Darkroom with Master Chia and researching with poet-architect Robert Kocik on other darkroom and sensory deprivation practices, Faïn and Kocik envisioned a darkroom that would occupy a symbolic location at the base of the spine of a building. As part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space program in New York City, in February of 2008 they installed the Anechoic Darkroom in the basement vault of 14 Wall Street, a building that was once financial tycoon J.P. Morgan’s residence.

During the course of this installation, visitors could reserve the darkroom for a period anywhere between half an hour and 24 hours in length. Fain and Kocik built an arched structure made out of wood, cotton, wool, and metal, roughly 9 feet square in size. It served as a place for the participant to sit or lie down according to their feeling. As with the darkrooms of all traditions, the broad purpose of the Anechoic Darkroom was to stimulate reflection, meditation, or epiphany.

Experience a fifteen-minute performance based on this collaborative work of Daria Fain and Robert Kocik. Daria will explain the development of their collaborative research and how Master Chia's system is integrated in their artistic process including its health and artistic benefit for professional performers, poets and lay people. A ten-minute video of the performance will also be presented followed by Q and A.

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